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Oh, look, a softie redefining words at whim.

You're an idiot.

Here, have another chart. This is growth.

You should have bought AAPL, ya dummy.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=MSFT&t=5y&l=off&z=l&q=l&c=aapl

--
BMO

Static share price for the past decade, but:

revenue:
2000: 22.96 billion
2011: 69.94 billion (ms ends their year on 6/30.. so this is 6/30/10 - 6/30/11)

profits:
2000: 9.42 billion
2011: 23.15 billion

Yep.. shareholders are stupid. Not Microsoft's fault they don't want to reward their success.

2000 income announcement
2011 income statement

http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=MSFT+Interactive#symbol=MSFT;range=my

Just look at that chart. Look at it, guys. It's been down and flat since 2000. Yes, that chart is split-adjusted. All Y! stock charts are split adjusted. If you want growth, Microsoft is not where you want to be.

And the outlook is not encouraging. Just look at Windows 8.

--
BMO

The DOJ sure is responsible for a lot of recent crazy stories lately:

They're the department that bought the $16 muffins. link

They claim that Willie Nelson's song The Gambler is proof that online poker is illegal (yes, you read that right).link

And now a ToS violation is a crime.

Maybe the DOJ needs to be brought to justice.

They can be - It is actually quite simple.

1. Build a site that the DOJ is likely to hit
2. Include appropriate TOS statements that ensure that the simple act of downloading a file from the site (including index.html) by the DOJ requires a payment of 1 TRILLION DOLLARS - or something else like that....

See .. Simple

They're the department that bought the $16 muffins. link

It turned out what happened was a $16 breakfast, that among other things included muffins, got recorded as muffins.

http://www.startribune.com/nation/132803818.html

Good thing the public threw a shitfit over that.

The DOJ sure is responsible for a lot of recent crazy stories lately:

They're the department that bought the $16 muffins. link

They claim that Willie Nelson's song The Gambler is proof that online poker is illegal (yes, you read that right).link

And now a ToS violation is a crime.

Maybe the DOJ needs to be brought to justice.

The way I see it a college degree has little to do with intelligence or the ability to understand politics, especially where ethics are concerned.

I avoid the use of hard numbers. In most arguments there are no right number, if I find the most accepted numbers out there someone is going to produce another set of numbers that are theoretically more accurate. I do on occasion use demonstration numbers that aren't meant to be taken as 100% accurate, like the bad socialism post in this thread.

Also the way I see it I spell rather well for a phonetic speller with just a small touch of autism which memorizing hard "numerical" type data (which includes spelling) difficult for me. I have no problem with concepts and I've learned my way out of the social issues, I'm glad it's a very mild case. What I lack in ability to memorize data that isn't easily attached to a concept in a manner that can be derived I've more than made up for with the ability to see how systems work, where flaws in systems are likely and to predict outcomes to complex situations - even if I can't always attach hard numbers to it.

I also learn the ways people interact with one another.

One thing I have found is most college educated left wingers I deal with, regardless of where they went to school use a very rigid system of fallacy propped up by fallacy using their degree and references to other who are also followers of the same rigid system to as a sort of bullet proof barrier to any argument no matter the subject or validity of the counter argument. I trolled Yahoo with the intent of proving this one time. Most of the answers invoked the very fallacies and methods I outlined. You don't have to look far to find examples of the right wing guilt by association thing I mentioned as a counter point.

In my own defense I did not misspell many words. Had I misspelled a significant number of words and not a single one consistently coupled with the inability to use the shift and enter keys the spelling argument would have had more validity. The words I did misspell though not correct worked phonetically. Not basing an argument on fallacies, such as the appeal to ridicule, which is typically among the biggest reasons people on Slashdot and other forums are so quick to jump on spelling errors is an incredibly big bonus to any argument you might make - superficially. Use of fallacies should be a greater handicap to those who use them than my minor learning memorization disability should ever be but alas it would take a greater percentage of people who understood fallacies for that to work.

As a hard libertarian I agree with many key points from the left or the right the opposite side disagrees with. This has caused me to have a very diverse and often unstable (when in close proximity to one another) group of friends. I pick my friends from both the Left and the Right based on the content of their character and their ability to make good arguments for their positions without the standard issue rhetoric (full of fallacy), rather I agree with them or not. In other words people who can think for themselves and not nitpick minor quirks of others to get a quick cheap upper hand.

Just in time for Nigel Tufnel Day.

"It's like, how much more black could this be? And the answer is: 'None. None more black.' "

Best rock movie ever.

Your old 286 had less computational ability than a smart phone, and last I checked, my smartphone doesn't have a CPU fan, and runs on a hell of a lot less power than a 286 required.

Irrelevant. No one uses smartphones to write Word documents, work on spreadsheets, etc. Very few use them as their primary means of communicating on the internet on forums like this one. Back in the 286 days, those computers were the standard for word processing, spreadsheets, and communications (though back then it was usually on BBSes, or Usenet rather than websites, but the activity is the same though the details have changed). These days, people usually use desktop PCs with Core2 CPUs to do these tasks. So, for the same tasks, they're using more electric power.

if you ran the modern BMW and the old VW Beetle at the same speeds and with using the same non-essential extras (e.g. A/C, sound, GPS, etc...), would that fuel economy picture still favor the Beetle?

Yes. In fact, any crappy old 80s economy car will probably beat the BMW. According to this, the old Beetle got around 25mpg. According to Edmunds, a new BMW 7-series gets 17/25. Maybe I should have picked a higher-end car, like a Bentley or Ferrari. A brand-new Bentley Brooklands Coupe gets 9 in the city and 15 on the highway. It has nothing to do with engineering, it's all about basic physics: the Beetle weighted little more than a bicycle (hyperbole), had a tiny engine with little horsepower, so it got good fuel economy. Even the Model T got better fuel economy than that Bentley. The Bentley, OTOH, weighs as much as a tank and has a giant, powerful engine.

"You're an idiot"

"You're just another jerk trying to use an ad hominem attack instead of presenting a valid argument."

I'm confused. Are you arguing in favor of or in opposition to ad hominem attack???

And, is it you Scotty? Since we know Scott's not at all averse to using pseudonyms to attack his critics:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/cutline/demotion-dilbert-continues-no-comic-relief-creator-172503679.html

The voumnes on bank of ireland suggest HFT to me, as far as I'm aware there is a 1% transaction tax on purchasing shares on the ISE. http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=bir.ir&ql=1

F'ing computers indeed.

http://news.yahoo.com/ap-exclusive-cia-following-twitter-facebook-081055316.html

http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/search/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED246534&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED246534

http://www.cpj.org/reports/2011/05/the-10-tools-of-online-oppressors.php

If what the Judge said is true that she is retaliating for a loss of financial support she sounds like a spoiled tool.

Blackmail your own family? Whip her again.

FTA:
"As such, the government has maintained that the device is the equivalent of devices designed to
capture routing and header data on e-mail and other internet communications, and therefore does not
require a search warrant."

LOL so we should all have cell phone jammers, the equivalent of a door.

Folks we had a good run, it's over. Everything now however illegal is being justified
"National security". Former Minnesota Gov. Jesse Ventura has had enough, being blocked
with that iron door to his lawsuit.
http://news.yahoo.com/ventura-miffed-court-says-hes-off-mexico-174718110.html

I watch the local TV broadcast and commercials of "see something, say something"
and think of the tales taught me about the Nazi's and how neighbors told on neighbors
till nobody trusted anyone. Godwin's law does not apply, this was taught me in school
and how Hitler came to power; through old reel to reel's of "You are there"'s
by Walter Cronkite.

Of course building a cell phone tower to capture a persons cell info is illegal.
That it's even questioned is a red flag.

Yes, these falling bullets do kill people. Citation provided

In a Reuters article about world population hitting 7 billion, there is a reference to slowing growth, with the trend toward decreasing population in about 40 years. So maybe if we wait a few decades, the problem (and humans) will go away.

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=RHT
I would certainly recommend their support offerings as both best in class and exceptional value, but you don't need them in every situation.
It is also interesting to turn the question around. Do you think that Redhat would prefer you to use a different distribution?

It's implied by the word nerd:

"2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept."

Science and occasional math stories, sure. Union disputes in Australia? No.

What about politics nerds, airline nerds, union nerds, history nerds, travel nerds...?

It's implied by the word nerd:

"2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept."

Science and occasional math stories, sure. Union disputes in Australia? No.

Inability or seriously reduced ability to travel to or from Australia, e.g. on business of a possibly nerdy nature? Quite possibly. The company I work for has an installation in Australia in the next couple of weeks...

It's implied by the word nerd:

"2. A person who is single-minded or accomplished in scientific or technical pursuits but is felt to be socially inept."

Science and occasional math stories, sure. Union disputes in Australia? No.

What are you talking about?

More bonds (from the *Treasury*) means larger supply of bonds relative to demand which means lower bond prices and higher yields. The Fed keeps prices up and yields down by *creating new money from nothing*, buying the bonds from the Primary Dealers. Thereby increasing the money supply, increasing inflation, reducing interest rates, pushing up asset prices, funding the Federal deficit and keeping the Too Big To Fail banks in business.

The default behaviour of a debt based monetary system is inflationary boom followed by deflationary collapse. It is only through continued (exponential) expansion of the money supply (more debts) which prevents the collapse. i.e. Lower and lower interest rates. They call this growth.

Here is the inflationary bubble in action guess what comes next.

This is why they keep banging on about confidence and growth. Haven't you observed the last few decades?

First thing, because of the nature of the beast wifi is basically like going back to the old Ethernet Hubs, with the added benefit of it being Collision Avoidance, and not Collision Detection, but because it operates like a hub, you are only as fast as your slowest user.

CSMA/CA is not an advantage. It takes A LOT more overhead to avoid a collision than to detect it. However, on wireless networks, detection is problematic; it's more of a workaround than an improvement.

Unreliable sources:
CSMA/CD CSMA/CA Comparison

#1 the volcano is not a supervolcano. It is surrounded by them, but is not one itself.
#2 it doesn't errupt every 300,000 years...it is able to build up for 300,000 years. It could have only started building up 1,000 years ago, or maybe 280,000, who knows.
A scientist on the team that notice the growth was quoted as saying "It's not a volcano that we think is going to erupt at any moment, but it certainly is interesting, because the area was thought to be essentially dead."
Since it appeared to be dead, it most likely has not been building since the day of the last erruption - there was a dormant period. It can build for 300,000 years. It last errupted 300,000 years ago. IE - evolutionarily speaking, homo sapiens won't exist by the time this thing errupts. And maybe, while evolving, we will have learned to spreading FUD.

I was about to say dmoz.org but someone else beat me to it. But what about http://dir.yahoo.com/ ? It's not good anymore?

Sounds about as epic as 17500000000000000000 h2o molecules striking your face, in a raindrop.

According to

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20090413123841AAP8lWw

your number falls short by an order of magnitude. There are actually 1,700,000,000,000,000,000,000 H2O molecules in a raindrop.

It has been going on long before the deregulation, since 1971... Actually mid 1960s since it was the Vietnam war spending which started the problem.

The 2008 crash was the end of a credit bubble which had been blowing up since Nixon took the US dollar off of the gold standard. Nothing but debt backing the dollar.

Chris Martenson has a good chart of total US debt. Matches an exponential curve to 98%. Doubling period of about 7 years. Eventually you just run out of people to suck into the Ponzi scheme.

http://media.chrismartenson.com/images/credit-market-doublings.jpg

Totally irrelevant which political side was in power. 9% growth in debt every year for 40 years.

You want to see a 40 year exponentially growing credit bubble in action?

http://chart.finance.yahoo.com/z?s=^DJI&t=my&q=l&l=off&z=l&a=v&p=s&lang=en-US&region=US

Now there is a truly impressive Ponzi scam.

In time we will probably have too few people: http://news.yahoo.com/next-challenge-not-too-many-people-too-few-112046879.html/

Bets on how long until they are busted for antitrust? although frankly after Intel got away with bribery AND compiler rigging (which they are still doing BTW) frankly I think our DoJ is as worthless as tits on a boar hog.

But between double standards for themselves and the rumor they are looking at buying Yahoo which would give them pretty much the entire webmail market (FYI Yahoo email has over 300 million unique users, about double what Gmail has in the US as well, its the one thing Yahoo is #1 on) frankly Google is starting to scare me. they have more info on everyone than most spook factories could ever dream of, thanks to their tax dodging they have huge amounts of capital they can wave around, and frankly their RDF makes the one the late Jobs had look like a tinker toy.

Frankly apple? Really doesn't scare me. Their desire for crazy high margins makes sure they stay at the top end and never really venture below the mid to high price range but Google? Android is showing up on everything from low rent tablets and TVs to the latest high end stuff, all that data...yeah MSFT will end up IBM, big in business but not really going much past their core markets, Apple will continue to be the boutique high end brand, but Google could easily become another "ultrasupermegacorp' like MSFT was in the 90s and we all know how nice they turned out to be for competition. Ballmer can throw chairs and want to fucking kill Google but Google is the 8000 pound gorilla and can fucking kill anybody it wants now. that much power in ANY hands i find a little scary.

These services were already known to authorities (and anyone who has logged into TOR) and Anonymous probably only hindered that investigation.

The Dutch police's National Investigations Office said in a statement it had managed to infiltrate several "hidden services" sites internationally where users can surf the internet and communicate anonymously.

Investigators managed to break into them and access the images as well as online chats that included identifying details of users of the sites. The details are being turned over to the FBI, prosecutors said.

http://news.yahoo.com/dutch-probe-uncovers-hidden-child-porn-sites-us-152808634.html

25USD/h does not seem that bad compared to the $36/h average wage for UAW auto workers

I still don't understand why this wasn't more broadly reported, but CO2's role may not be the cause... http://news.yahoo.com/nasa-data-blow-gaping-hold-global-warming-alarmism-192334971.html

It's more likely that the stock and other assets are in a family trust and Powell is a trustee. Yahoo Finance doesn't list Jobs or Powell as a major holder nor are either listed in the insider transaction history.

MSFT grew nicely until 2000. It has yet to return to that level.

I still use http://finance.yahoo.com/ for tracking my stocks, which I think is pretty good and keep coming back to it each time I go and try out other finance/stock market sites. However I admit I haven't really looked around for (free) alternatives in the last year or so. Anyone know of any good alternative (free) stock market/investing/finance sites?

Sadly, it was run by people who got bigheaded with the advent of whatever "Web 2.0" was supposed to be. It is now unrecognizable and useless, the original goal of sensible search results seemingly long forgotten.

That killed Yahoo too. For a good time (not), check out Yahoo Finance's stock message boards. Much like Slashdot's 2.0 revamps, Yahoo did its message boards in 2006 and it's been all downhill from there.

Today, the Y! finance message boards for stocks of very widely-held companies (ORCL) consist of nothing more than (R)tards and (D)tards flaming each other. Midsize companies (ADBE) are full of people flaming the company (and spam from spambots). And the ones for tiny companies (wow, ELNK is still in business?) consist only of spam from obvious spambots that take a news headline, link it to the spam/malware site, and have a bunch of robots replying to it.

And Yahoo's nonexistent abuse department does nothing about the spam, even though the spam follows the same format, and uses the same limited set of spam domains.

Sadly, it was run by people who got bigheaded with the advent of whatever "Web 2.0" was supposed to be. It is now unrecognizable and useless, the original goal of sensible search results seemingly long forgotten.

That killed Yahoo too. For a good time (not), check out Yahoo Finance's stock message boards. Much like Slashdot's 2.0 revamps, Yahoo did its message boards in 2006 and it's been all downhill from there.

Today, the Y! finance message boards for stocks of very widely-held companies (ORCL) consist of nothing more than (R)tards and (D)tards flaming each other. Midsize companies (ADBE) are full of people flaming the company (and spam from spambots). And the ones for tiny companies (wow, ELNK is still in business?) consist only of spam from obvious spambots that take a news headline, link it to the spam/malware site, and have a bunch of robots replying to it.

And Yahoo's nonexistent abuse department does nothing about the spam, even though the spam follows the same format, and uses the same limited set of spam domains.

Sadly, it was run by people who got bigheaded with the advent of whatever "Web 2.0" was supposed to be. It is now unrecognizable and useless, the original goal of sensible search results seemingly long forgotten.

That killed Yahoo too. For a good time (not), check out Yahoo Finance's stock message boards. Much like Slashdot's 2.0 revamps, Yahoo did its message boards in 2006 and it's been all downhill from there.

Today, the Y! finance message boards for stocks of very widely-held companies (ORCL) consist of nothing more than (R)tards and (D)tards flaming each other. Midsize companies (ADBE) are full of people flaming the company (and spam from spambots). And the ones for tiny companies (wow, ELNK is still in business?) consist only of spam from obvious spambots that take a news headline, link it to the spam/malware site, and have a bunch of robots replying to it.

And Yahoo's nonexistent abuse department does nothing about the spam, even though the spam follows the same format, and uses the same limited set of spam domains.

Sadly, it was run by people who got bigheaded with the advent of whatever "Web 2.0" was supposed to be. It is now unrecognizable and useless, the original goal of sensible search results seemingly long forgotten.

That killed Yahoo too. For a good time (not), check out Yahoo Finance's stock message boards. Much like Slashdot's 2.0 revamps, Yahoo did its message boards in 2006 and it's been all downhill from there.

Today, the Y! finance message boards for stocks of very widely-held companies (ORCL) consist of nothing more than (R)tards and (D)tards flaming each other. Midsize companies () are full of people flaming the company. And the ones for tiny companies (wow, ELNK is still in business?) consist only of spam from obvious spambots that take a news headline, link it to the spam/malware site, and have a bunch of robots replying to it.

Sadly, it was run by people who got bigheaded with the advent of whatever "Web 2.0" was supposed to be. It is now unrecognizable and useless, the original goal of sensible search results seemingly long forgotten.

That killed Yahoo too. For a good time (not), check out Yahoo Finance's stock message boards. Much like Slashdot's 2.0 revamps, Yahoo did its message boards in 2006 and it's been all downhill from there.

Today, the Y! finance message boards for stocks of very widely-held companies (ORCL) consist of nothing more than (R)tards and (D)tards flaming each other. Midsize companies () are full of people flaming the company. And the ones for tiny companies (wow, ELNK is still in business?) consist only of spam from obvious spambots that take a news headline, link it to the spam/malware site, and have a bunch of robots replying to it.

Top 1% own 38.1%
Top 96-99% own 21.3%
Top 90-95% own 11.5%

You know, lets assume those stats are accurate.

This kind of thinking always struck me as third-grader thinking. Who cares if joe got two cookies and you only got one? If you didnt know he had two cookies, you wouldnt be complaining in the first place. If your salary sucks, take it up with your boss. If it doesnt, stop complaining that someone else is getting more, because it doesnt impact you.

Also, I would note that almost half of americans pay no taxes, and (from same article) the top 10% (those greedy jerks) pay 73% of all taxes. Never mind that that really doesnt square with the limited form taxes were supposed to take, we need to PUNISH them for the crime of HAVING MONEY.

"I don't know if Apple is on the [REACT] steering committee," Stephen Wagstaffe told Yahoo! News when asked about a link between Apple and the Rapid Enforcement Allied Computer Team (REACT) Task Force that entered Jason Chen's home and seized four computers and two servers as evidence in a felony investigation. Documents revealed that Apple did indeed sit on REACT's steering committee, which provided 'direction and oversight' to the law enforcement agency.

Yahoo Postmaster has a pretty useful help page. If you do everything listed here you should be in good shape: http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/mail/postmaster/basics/postmaster-15.html

I'm pretty sure it's everyone. Blue is at the very edge of our ability to see, and our ability to resolve it isn't very good. Our eyes respond best to green light.

However, I guess I'm wrong: a quick google search turned up the following discussion about this very thing:
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110128170535AAqOv0v

One responder points to chromatic aberration:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatic_aberration

They seem to agree that it's a problem with people who are slightly myopic. Are you? I am, though only slightly (-0.125 diopter in one eye, -0.75 in the other), and don't use any corrective lenses. The responder says this is why almost all alarm clocks are either red or green, since everyone should be able to read green well at night, and while red was probably used mainly because that was the only LED color available for a long time, there's a lot more near-sighted people than far-sighted ones, and apparently it's the far-sighted people that do better with blue signs at night.

In the UK, there is no law as such, but the maxumum amount as per the Medicines And Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency over the counter is 100. Anything over that requires a prescription. They also recommend a maximum of 32 be sold over the counter as standard practice, and most shops and pharmacies stick to this.

So while it's possible they could have handled the situation better (I have no idea, we only have your version of events), they were probably concerned that may have been breaking the law.

Interesting note: Zogby has Cain ahead of Romney by 20 points! http://news.yahoo.com/poll-cain-surges-opens-20-point-lead-romney-132015440.html

Ah, someone modded me flamebait. Let me back up those assertions:

1) http://instinctmagazine.com/blogs/blog/herman-cain-asks-for-the-science-behind-believing-being-gay-is-not-a-choice

2) http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/herman-cain-doubles-down-on-his-muslim-loyalty-oath-idea/

3) http://news.yahoo.com/cain-wall-street-protesters-blame-yourself-joblessness-031405246.html

better
ADVERB:
3. More: It took me better than a year to recover.

The scientific community is rarely wrong about a major conclusion that many thousands of scientists agree with high confidence over many years of research

Our latest chemistry Nobel Prize winner disagrees.

http://news.yahoo.com/vindicated-ridiculed-israeli-scientist-wins-nobel-183256852.html

Rival smartphone makers could exploit a rare letdown by Apple in the launch of its new iPhone 4S model, which failed to wow fans, and grab a bigger share of the most lucrative part of the phone market.

http://finance.yahoo.com/blogs/breakout/apple-iphone-4s-opens-door-competitors-analyst-210516885.html

"It's certainly a disappointment given the fact that people were looking for a new iteration to be number 5 in this case," says David Garrity, principal at GVA Research.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204524604576610991978907616.html

"Underwhelming is the word that hit me," said Endpoint Technologies Associates analyst Roger Kay.

The letdown was echoed in the early performance of Apple's shares, which fell as much as 5% Tuesday and finished down 0.6% at $372.50 at 4 p.m. trading even as the broader market rose.

MICROSOFT is losing money fast

You mean the company that made $23 billion last year? Nearly as much in profit as Google's revenue and 3x their profits. 65% more profits than Apple. That company? That company is losing money fast? Really?

Really?

No seriously.. really?

I could argue that Karl Marx is correct "because he has history on his side"

- Karl Marx had NO history on his side. He didn't understand economics and his proposals were not based on history, they were specifically ideology driven. I had to study Marxism at school long time ago as a former USSR student, born there, it's unfortunate for me, what can I say.

Notice how many aristocrats lost their heads in various revolutions of the poor?

- absolutely. All of those people were effective governing force over those, who cut their heads.

This is not in any way, history that proves Marx right.

This is history that proves MY point - that over time government becomes oppressive and it needs to be decapitated. We don't really NEED to KILL people for this today, you know?

We CAN do this the right way, by learning about economics and voting for the best leader who understands that the direction of freedom and individual liberty is the same direction, as the direction of good economics.

Another thing, freedom = wealth is not necessarily true. There is plenty of wealth in non-free societies. Look at China

1. Yes, there is plenty of wealth in some places that are non-free, look at Saudi Arabia. THAT is a good example, but that again, proves my point about corruption of government.

2. No, China is not an example that you can use. China today is economically a much freer nation than USA. To start a business there you have very very little hoops to jump through. Businesses start in days without hurdles. There is real competition and government involvement is almost non-existent (of-course they do unfortunately collect some income taxes, and they are wrong about it), but again, this is MY POINT - they are allowing capitalism and they are thriving and simultaneously USA is destroying capitalism, and it's economy is on its death bed. I just left a comment yesterday about Steve Jobs.

It's not in the best of tastes, but here

As Jobs died in America and there were protests at the wall at his funeral, jobs died in America and there were protests at the Wall street at that funeral.

I was thinking something in terms of these lines, but couldn't put my finger on it. Probably because there were no buttons left to push.

"doing better and buying locations" is hardly ever possible, since the entire market is anti-competitive

- it's not the market itself that is anticompetitive. Look at all the competition that appears immediately in all the electronic gadgets market. It's the government that destroys the competition in the market, from education, to health care to energy, to insurance, to finance, to manufacturing, to utilities, to telecommunications, to agriculture and food. The government systematically destroys all competition and promotes oligopolies and monopolies.

As to rent seeking: here is my comment explaining why any investment that generates income stream can be described that way, but without these investments (like bonds, stocks, land, businesses of any type), there is no way to generate wealth that the society enjoys. The point of over-production and under-consumption is to generate savings that can be used to invest further into income generating activities, all of which can be described as 'rent seeking'. We NEED that for wealth generation, because that's the entire point of having savings and investments in the first place, and without that we are stuck working only for ourselves our entire lives, being subsistence farmers! (and even then, we are on some property, right?) Besides, property taxes are not exactly low today either and t